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Subject: Re: Who gave us Null-Move? (was: Re: Please stop the bickering)

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 11:21:03 10/31/99

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On October 31, 1999 at 12:26:22, Bruce Moreland wrote:

>On October 31, 1999 at 09:38:30, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>I don't follow.  Murray defined R=2 and recursive null-move.  I simply didn't
>>like them early on.  I tried them when I first started Crafty, as my intent was
>>to try _everything_ again (using all my Cray Blitz 'notes', plus anything else
>>I saw in the literature.)  IE I looked at Gnuchess, and it was doing null-move
>>R=2 recursive well prior to 95 when I started Crafty.  That bumped it up in
>>priority for me.
>>
>>In any case, I consider it far more important to publish an idea, than to later
>>publish details about implementing an idea someone else had already tested.
>>Chrilly didn't modify the original algorithm for null-move at all.  His main
>>contribution (IMHO) was the idea of useing the null-move result to detect
>>threats.  But 'null-move' itself was 'prior work'.
>
>I think you started doing R=2 after talking to me, and I did R=2 based upon the
>Donninger article and was enthusiastic about the results.

If you think back, when you suggested that, remember my first comment?  "R-2
is _bad_"  :)  I had tried that in Cray Blitz, because Murray suggested in his
paper that "R=2 and up needs further study..."  But, if you remember further,
I was running on a P5/133, and not going very fast early on (about 5K nodes
per second early in the bitmap stuff as I did copy/make).  And you kept
mentioning R=2, and I tried it/disabled it multiple times (those interested
can find the repeated tests in main.c comments where it was on, off, on, off,
etc.  :))

But my first run-in with R=2 was Murray's experiments in the late 80's...

It just turned out that in the late 80's, on the machine I was testing on,
R=2 also looked bad because of the 5-6 plies we could do on non-cray boxes.
Murray came to the same conclusion for the same reason, if I remember correctly.





>
>I don't understand the point of this thread.  It is clear that if you want to
>learn good stuff, you read articles on research programs or talk to amateurs.
>That's the meat and potatoes, which is not subsumed by the small amount of gravy
>you'll get from the professionals.

I wouldn't disagree at all.  Particularly if past history is used to predict
the future. :)  But there was a time when the best in the world were freely
explaining what we were doing, including (the ACM dominants from 1970-1994)
Slate, then Thompson, then myself, then Hsu/Campbell.


>
>I don't know why Donninger is being used as an example of a professional.  He is
>professional now, sure, but in 1993 he was amateur.  He was technically amateur
>as late as 1995 and possibly longer.

That has been mentioned, but seems unimportant to others.



>
>I have benefited with discussion with amateurs primarily, and from reading
>articles in the ACC books, a few other books, and the ICCAJ's.
>
>I think the amateurs figured out the internet before the professionals, so
>that's at least some of this.  You'll talk to whoever is there, and so far it's
>been amateurs.
>
>I have received a few ideas from professionals.  David Kittinger in particular
>provided me with some help at the 1995 WCCC.  I've got a few ideas from Ed's
>posts.  Frans told me something at a WMCCC that I couldn't make work.  I have
>compared notes with Stefan and John Stanback.
>
>Perhaps the professionals have gotten ideas from me, I don't know.
>
>I don't think that there is much magic in computer chess programs.  The
>professionals aren't doing anything special, they've just tuned for a long time.
> If you talk to them, if you are wimpy you'll get a lot of info, but you could
>get this from amateurs.  Once your program gets stronger you get ideas from
>frank discussions, but the ideas don't always work in your implementation.
>
>bruce



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